Microsoft Teams New Feature exposed by Pepe the Frog emoji
Microsoft is experimenting with a new feature that allows users to add custom emojis to its Microsoft Teams communication platform. According to The Verge, some Microsoft employees discovered the unexpected new option when they saw the animated emoji of Pepe the Frog — a meme with a controversial past — popping up in early internal builds of Microsoft Teams.
The Pepe the Frog emoji, which are popular on Discord servers and Twitch streams as playful reactions, were among the custom emoji that are not currently available in Microsoft Teams. We learned that Microsoft is testing the custom emoji feature in preliminary versions of Microsoft Teams, known as “dogfood” versions.
Microsoft Teams already supports GIFs via the Giphy service, but these are different from the emoji panel that shows up in video calls and chat messages on the platform. If Microsoft decides to launch this custom emoji feature to all Teams users, it does not mean that Pepe the Frog memes will be included by default, just the possibility to add a custom emoji.
IT admins will have the power to approve and enable new custom emoji similar to how Discord and Slack admins handle this. Some employees were shocked by the presence of Pepe the Frog in internal versions of Microsoft Teams because of the problematic background of this meme.
While Pepe the Frog is widely used harmlessly nowadays, the cartoon frog was also adopted by white supremacists in the past. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) added Pepe the Frog to its hate symbol database in 2016, but the organization has since collaborated with Pepe creators.
Microsoft has not confirmed custom emojis for Microsoft Teams yet, and the feature is still in its initial stages of testing. Microsoft did admit that the popular feature had been put on a list of future updates seven months ago. Since custom emojis have been around for a long time in competing platforms like Slack and Discord, all Microsoft Teams users will probably get this feature sometime this year.
We contacted Microsoft for a statement, but the company did not reply before the deadline.
